The “wealthiest 10%” of people on the planet are “responsible” for 65% of the 0.61C increase in global average temperatures over 1990-2020, according to new research.
The study, published in Nature Climate Change, uses a field of climate science called “attribution” to determine the contribution of the world’s “wealthiest population groups” to climate change through the greenhouse gases they emit.
The authors also calculate the contribution of these high-income groups to the increasing frequency of heatwaves and droughts.
For example, the study finds the wealthiest 10% of people – defined as those who earn at least €42,980 (£36,605) per year – contributed seven times more to the rise in monthly heat extremes around the world than the global average.
In another finding, the Amazon rainforest faced a threefold increase in the likelihood of droughts over the period studied, most of which was driven by the wealthiest 10% of the world’s population.
The authors also explore country-level emissions, finding that from the wealthiest 10% in the US produced the emissions that caused a doubling in heat extremes across “vulnerable regions” globally.
One scientist not involved in the study tells Carbon Brief that efforts to attribute global warming to individual income groups is an “important step towards targeted policies” and could support climate litigation.
Emissions inequality
Humans emit more than 40bn tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. Developed countries are responsible for the majority of global emissions, as a result of the typically more carbon-intensive lifestyles of their residents.
Meanwhile, the most severe impacts of climate change are disproportionately felt by the poorest and most vulnerable people.
The new study uses an income and wealth inequality dataset from the World Inequality Database to track inequality over 1990-2019, showing how much the world’s wealthiest 10%, 1% and 0.1% of society have contributed to warming over 1990-2020. (For details on the method, see the modelling inequalities section below.)
The world’s wealthiest 10% all earn more than €42,980 (£36,605) per year, according to the database. Meanwhile, the world’s wealthiest 0.1% earn more than €537,770 (£458,011) per year.
Of the 0.61C increase in global average temperatures over 1990-2020, the authors estimate that 65% was due to the emissions of the wealthiest 10% of people on the planet. For the wealthiest 0.1%, the estimate is 8%.
The graph below shows how much global temperatures would have risen over 1990-2020 if everyone in the world emitted as much as the world’s poorest 50% (purple), middle 40% (green), richest 10% (orange), richest 1% (blue) and richest 0.1% (pink) people. The grey bar shows how much global temperatures actually rose.
How global temperatures would have risen if everyone in the world emitted the world produced the same amount of emissions, on average, as individuals in the bottom 50% (purple), middle 40% (green), top 10% (orange), top 1% (blue) and top 0.1% (pink) of the world’s emitters. Source: Schöngart et al (2025).
The authors find that if the whole world had emitted as much as the wealthiest 10% of people over 1990-2020, global average temperatures would have risen by 2.9C, instead of 0.61C. If the global population had emissions as large as the wealthiest 0.1%, temperatures would have risen by 12.2C.
Meanwhile, the study calculates that if the whole world had emissions as low as the poorest 50%, global temperatures would have remained close to 1990 levels.
Hot and dry extremes
As greenhouse gas emissions cause the climate to warm, extreme weather events such as heatwaves and droughts are becoming more intense, frequent and long-lasting.
The authors use attribution – a field of climate science that aims to identify the “fingerprint” of global warming on these events – to determine the contribution of the emissions of the world’s wealthiest people to the increasing frequency of heatwaves and droughts.
The authors assess “extremely hot” and “extremely dry” months, defined as the most extreme 1% of months in a pre-industrial climate during the hottest month of the year regionally. (In a pre-industrial climate, only one of each extreme would be expected every 100 years on average.)
The graphs below show the number of additional heatwaves (left) and droughts (right) that have occurred since 1990 due to climate change in different regions of the world.
The full bar shows the total number of additional heatwaves due to human-cased climate change in each region. The green bar shows additional occurrences due to the wealthiest 1%. The green and orange bars combined show the wealthiest 10%.
The numbers in green and orange show how much the wealthiest 1% and 10% of the planet contributed to the extreme, compared to the global average. (For example, an orange number of 7.0 means that the wealthiest 10% of people contributed seven times more to the extreme event than the global average.)
The study finds that an average of 11.5 additional heat events observed in August – the month where the rise in heat extremes is, on average, most pronounced – are attributable to the wealthiest 10%.
It also calculates that emissions from this group resulted in, on average, an additional 2.3 droughts in the Amazon in October – the month with the strongest attributable drying trend in the region.
Highest emitters
The authors also assess the contributions of the wealthiest people to climate extremes on a country level, identifying the US, the EU, China and India as the world’s four highest emitting regions.
The graphic below shows the increase in frequency of one-in-100 year peak summer heat extremes in selected regions attributable to the wealthiest 10% of people (left) and 1% of people (right) in China (red), the US (pink), the EU (peach) and India (blue).
Emissions from the wealthiest 10% in the US resulted in an average of 1.3 extra heat events globally, the authors find. However, this increase is distributed unevenly across the globe.
For example, the authors find this income group was responsible for the emissions that contributed to 2.7 additional heat events in “heat-affected areas” such as the Amazon and south-east Africa.
Emissions from the wealthiest 10% of people in the EU resulted in an additional 1.5 heatwaves in both the Amazon and south-east Africa.
Meanwhile, the Amazon faces 2.1 more heat extremes in 2020 than in 1990 due to the emissions of the richest 1% in the US, China, EU and India.
While inequalities between one country or region and another are well documented, it should also be noted that “inequalities within developing countries are increasing”, Dr Carl Schleussner, study author and leader of the integrated climate impacts research group at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), tells Carbon Brief.
For example, he notes that the paper shows “very high levels” of emissions from “the Chinese middle and upper classes”.
However, he says that many existing global frameworks to address climate change “treat countries as a whole” and fail to “differentiate” between income groups within countries.
Schleussner argues that the study highlights the need for “progressive policies” for climate action, which involve “tackling particularly high emitters” in all countries.
Dr Sarah Schöngart, a researcher at ETH Zurich and lead author of the study, tells Carbon Brief that studies such as this could provide important evidence in loss and damage litigation.
Prof Jakob Zscheischler, an Earth system scientist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research who was not involved in the study, also highlights the ways the findings could be used in climate-change lawsuits. He tells Carbon Brief:
“Quantifying the contribution of individual income groups to global warming and changes in climate extremes is an important step towards targeted policies and further supports climate litigation. Supporting climate injustice with concrete numbers will hopefully help the most vulnerable and least responsible strengthen their case.”
Modelling inequalities
The study uses a range of methods to attribute changes in heat and drought to the emissions of particular wealth groups. To model global greenhouse gas emissions by wealth group, the paper uses a “wealth-based carbon inequality assessment” from a 2022 study.
(See Carbon Brief’s coverage of the 2022 study.)
The study uses income and wealth inequality dataset from the World Inequality Database to track inequality over 1990-2019. It combines economic data with information on per-capita carbon footprints – calculated using “input-output” methodologies combined with data from the “distributional national accounts” project.”
The model considers three factors. The first is private consumption – made up of emissions from the direct use of fossil fuels and emissions embedded into goods and services. The second includes emissions from government spending in that person’s country – such as government administration, public roads or defence. The final component of a person’s carbon footprint is from their investments.
The authors then created a series of “counterfactual” emissions pathways, which imagine the world without the emissions of the wealthiest 10%, 1% and 0.1% of society, respectively. The emissions pathways include CO2, methane and nitrous oxide emissions, expressed as CO2-equivalent.
Lead author Schöngart tells Carbon Brief that including methane in the models is important, because it has “really high potency and near-term warming”. However, she notes that the team needed to make some assumptions about methane emissions – for example, assuming that each income group emits the same relative amount of methane compared to other greenhouse gas emissions.
Using a “simple” climate model called MAGICC, the authors model global average temperatures under these counterfactual emissions pathways. This allows them to calculate how much the planet would have warmed over 1990-2020 without the emissions of the 10%, 1% and 0.1% of society, respectively.
The authors use the global average temperature trends to produce temperature and rainfall data for every land-based grid square on Earth via a climate model emulator called MESMER.
Schöngart tells Carbon Brief that an emulator is “an approximation of an Earth system model” which “allows us to generate incredible amounts of data”, while using less computing power and taking less time to run.
The study authors then use attribution methods to identify how the emissions from the world’s wealthiest members of society have affected the frequency of heatwaves and droughts, by comparing the world as it is to a “counterfactual” world without human-caused climate change.
The graphic below shows these steps.
Earth system scientist Zscheischler praises the methods in the study. He tells Carbon Brief that “the main innovation of work lies in its novel combination of relatively simple emulators that capture the most important relationships between emissions and global warming and changes in extremes”.
He adds that emulators have been evaluated in other studies and are “trustworthy for this type of delicate analysis”.
Prof Wim Thiery – an associate professor at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, who was not involved in the study – also commends the use of emulators. He tells Carbon Brief that “producing the information presented in this study with a suite of full-blown Earth system models is impossible from a computational cost and human effort perspective”.
The post Two-thirds of global warming since 1990 caused by world’s ‘wealthiest 10%’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Two-thirds of global warming since 1990 caused by world’s ‘wealthiest 10%’
Climate Change
“Next year is too late for regulations”: Beetaloo Energy’s 2GW gas-powered AI data centre a “disaster proposal” destined to cause climate chaos
SYDNEY, Wednesday 22 July 2026 — Beetaloo Energy has secured land from the NT Government for a massive $40 billion “hyperscale” AI data centre near Darwin, which would be powered by 2 gigawatts (GW) of gas power fracked directly from the Beetaloo basin, prompting calls from Greenpeace for urgent federal legislation.
The proposal marks a dangerous escalation in the AI data centre industry’s expansion, which threatens to entrench fossil fuel infrastructure for decades and put immense pressure on the region’s fragile water resources — while continuing to be unregulated.
Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This disaster proposal for a 2GW gas-powered AI data centre in the NT is a shocking example of the unchecked expansion of hyperscale data centres in Australia. It is also, critically, more evidence for the urgent need for a moratorium on all new data centres until strong, binding regulations are put in place to protect our communities and climate.
“This proposal mirrors the frenzied, unchecked expansion currently wreaking havoc on communities in the US. We are seeing cowboy data centre operators treat Australia like a playground, steam-rolling ahead with projects that would lock down precious water resources and spike emissions, despite the overwhelming community opposition.
“Every day, more councils, communities and environmental groups are joining Greenpeace’s call for a moratorium on data centres, yet as of today there is still no system of safeguards or rules in place to regulate these companies.
“While Beetaloo Energy and the NT Government prepare to bulldoze ahead with this climate and water disaster, the Prime Minister is asleep at the wheel, promising to legislate a vague set of standards next year.
“Next year is too late, and anything less than mandating data centres cover their own energy demand, and then some, with new renewable energy is not enough.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lucy.keller@greenpeace.org
Reports of human rights and environmental abuses linked to Chinese companies’ overseas investments in the mining and refining of minerals needed for the clean energy transition are on the rise, research by a monitoring group has found.
The number of recorded allegations of harm at projects tied to Chinese firms have increased every year since 2021, rising to 148 in 2025, according to the Business and Human Rights Centre (BHRC). On Wednesday it released new data showing that a total of 434 allegations of abuse were made against Chinese-backed projects over the five-year period in projects across the world.
The world’s top cleantech manufacturer, China is also the leading financier of critical minerals projects worldwide. The country has committed more than $120 billion in foreign direct investment into mineral mining and processing since 2023, Australian think-tank Climate Energy Finance recently found.
“China plays a central role in global transition mineral supply chains, and as such has a unique opportunity to raise the bar on human rights and community engagement at every stage of mining,” said Michael Clements, BHRC’s executive director.
“While there have been encouraging developments, from stronger regulations to more company engagement, there remains a gap between human rights commitment and action,” he said.
The report comes as communities affected by Chinese-backed mineral projects have filed the first two cases to a Beijing-based mediation mechanism intended to bring willing Chinese companies to the discussion table with affected communities.
Allegations of harms on the rise
BHRC’s latest analysis – including data for the period 2023-2025 – covered mining, smelting and refining projects for 11 minerals considered key to manufacturing clean energy technologies such as batteries, EVs and solar panels needed to move away from climate-heating fossil fuels.
The highest number of abuses was recorded in Indonesia, the world’s largest producer of nickel, which is used to make EV batteries. After the Indonesian government banned exports of raw nickel, Chinese firms invested billions of dollars to develop a large-scale nickel smelting and processing industry in the Southeast Asian country, largely powered by coal.
Other countries with a high number of recorded harms include the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Chinese firms dominate cobalt and copper production; Myanmar, where unregulated rare earths mining has caused widespread environmental destruction; Serbia, where Chinese-backed mining of some of Europe’s most significant copper and gold deposits is swallowing land and homes, and Zimbabwe, where Chinese investments have turned the nation into Africa’s top lithium producer.
Growing risks for people and nature
Allegations tracked by BHRC included negative impacts on local livelihoods, health and land rights, workers’ health and safety and work-related deaths, as well as water pollution and environmental contamination. In addition, 18 people were attacked for raising concerns about Chinese transition mineral projects between 2023 and 2025.
The report shows that 10 Chinese companies, including Zijin Mining, Tsingshan Group and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, accounted for nearly two-thirds of all allegations recorded in the last five years. It found that some Chinese companies “still appear to turn a blind eye to these issues” but noted that several others have been more responsive to allegations of abuse. However, even among companies with human rights policies, implementation remains a challenge, BHRC warned.
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Zijin Mining and Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt repeatedly responded to the allegations of harm by saying they take environmental and social risks seriously and adhere to international standards. Tsingshan Group never responded to BHRC’s requests for comment.
Platform for dialogue between communities and Chinese firms
At the same time, Chinese authorities have made “significant progress” on introducing a more specific framework for managing environmental and social risks in overseas investment, BHRC said.
This includes global consultation on a draft Sustainable Mining Code, adherence to UN guiding principles on business and human rights, and greater emphasis on oversight of companies operating overseas.
The China Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals & Chemicals Importers & Exporters (CCCMC) set up a mediation and consultation mechanism intended to provide a platform for dialogue between affected communities or civil society groups that have raised concerns and Chinese companies.
More than three years since its launch, the mechanism has now received its first two complaints from local communities and many more are considering filing a case, Margaux Day, executive director at the nonprofit Accountability Counsel, told an event hosted by Climate Home News last month.
“This is incredibly exciting in that it fills a governance and accountability gap where often communities who are seeking to protect their rights and the environment can’t reach someone who will respond to them,” she told the panel discussion at London Climate Action Week.
Climate Home News understands that the complaints were filed by communities in Latin America and Southeast Asia over labour rights and resettlement issues. No information about the cases has yet been made public. The mechanism’s secretariat did not respond to Climate Home News’ questions.
The mechanism was set up after the Chinese regulator for banks and insurers called on investor-level institutions to establish complaints bodies to hear from communities outside of China. But whether the new initiative will prove effective in tackling grievances remains an open question.
“Real potential” for better mining practices
Participation in the mechanism is voluntary for Chinese firms and it doesn’t have a fact-finding function, nor can it impose provisions for compensation or compliance with human rights standards.
But Day told Climate Home News that, if successful, it could bring companies to negotiate an outcome that is better for people and the planet and leads to more sustainable mining practice.
Chen Yu, an independent China advisor for campaign group Global Witness, agreed that the mechanism holds “real potential”.
“There exists nothing else at a similar level to promote dialogue between communities and Chinese mining companies in particular,” she said.
For companies, the mechanism opens “a channel for problem-solving and dialogue with communities”, she added, as “Chinese companies often remain cautious of approaching affected communities directly, afraid of making the problem bigger”.
However, Chen said the mechanism remains at an early stage of development, faces resourcing challenges and is not yet sufficiently understood by communities in mining areas or Chinese firms.
To help it address some of these challenges, the secretariat is currently seeking technical support from a range of organisations, including civil society groups. But, Chen said, “it will take time for the mechanism to show its value”.
The post Allegations of harms at China-backed transition minerals projects rise appeared first on Climate Home News.
Allegations of harms at China-backed transition minerals projects rise
Andreas Sieber is head of political strategy at 350.0g. Cat Abreu is director of the International Climate Politics Hub.
From the US abduction of Venezuela’s president at the start of this year to the Iran war which rumbles on, disruption is the new normal for global geopolitics, more often than not linked to conflict over supplies of oil and gas.
Events so far in 2026 – driven largely by the desire of the Trump administration to grab control of fossil fuels around the world – show that the climate community’s approach to energy diplomacy will have to evolve if we are to operate effectively and push for climate action in such a volatile landscape.
Today’s climate and energy governance must be able to cope with trade wars, genocide, fascism, spiralling inequality and challenges to multilateralism. The increasingly dominant paradigms of economic competitiveness, energy security and green industrialisation can help drive the transition but they also challenge our collective mission to deliver an equitable green shift.
US-China rivalry dominates
Longer-term geopolitical trends that are seeing power move from West to East and North to South have fuelled a US–China “superpower rivalry”, which is pulling the global economy apart and reining in trade.
A key question will be how the fracture “lines” are drawn: by the US and China, or also by other countries or blocs? Many governments will try to remain “in the middle” between the two giants to capture economic gains from both sides. Yet despite the language of “strategic autonomy”, Washington and Beijing may be in a position to force choices via market access, export controls and sanctions.
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At first glance, this may not seem particularly relevant for climate and energy politics. But Huawei’s exclusion from 5G operations across the political West and India following the so-called Clean Network Campaign by the US government serves as a warning of what could happen to climate green tech.
And the recent debate to cut out Chinese inverters from European markets follows the same pattern – US security forces perceive a risk and start encouraging their allies to drop Chinese technology.
The new drivers: competition and security
Despite this fracturing geopolitical and economic context, energy transition is still happening. To ensure it is effective and equitable, we need to understand what is driving it and how to adapt climate politics so that it better responds to these drivers.
Put simply, China is supplying the world with low-cost renewables (roughly 60% of critical wind and 80% of solar components), batteries, EVs and other key elements. Other countries now also want their piece of the green tech pie and are forming industrial policies to get it.
It is this new competitiveness-driven logic that will shape the quest for decarbonisation, which has shifted from cooperating around the cost of tackling climate change to rivalry for the benefits of climate action.
Over 90% of new renewables projects are now cheaper than fossil alternatives. Gas-fired power is 3–4 times more expensive than solar and wind. In 2015, most decarbonisation policies were “traditional” emissions-cutting strategies like carbon pricing or net zero dates, whereas green industrial policies now underpin the majority.
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Meanwhile, security has become a central driver of energy politics. We are living through the second major fossil fuel crisis in just four years. Elevated oil and gas prices will impose up to $1 trillion in additional costs on the global economy by the end of the year if disruption continues in the Strait of Hormuz. Fossil fuel supply chains have exposed countries to conflict, coercion and brutal price shocks.
Fossil fuel volatility destabilises whole economies – higher fuel costs drive up food prices, increase political instability, and push millions into poverty and hunger. This incentivises governments to shield themselves from global shocks, especially in countries that are net fossil fuel importers and home to roughly three-quarters of the world’s population.
Yet security fears can cut both ways. The same instability that makes fossil fuel dependence untenable is also sharpening concern over China’s dominance of critical clean technologies and supply chains.
Equity, cooperation and the opportunity for change
Developing countries benefit from the rapid uptake of renewables enabled by low-cost Chinese technologies. But significant fiscal space and public investment is needed for the electricity grids and infrastructure required to fully unleash the energy transition, as well as for green industrialisation to diversify revenue streams.
Despite this, industrial-scale domestic production and ownership often remain out of reach for too many countries that lack the fiscal space to allow green supply chains to flourish and compete with their traditional industrial base. But more just and diversified green tech supply chains could be achieved with concomitant support.
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For the first time in decades, the international order is being substantially reshaped. If within this context, decarbonisation is increasingly driven by green industrial policy, energy security and competitiveness, the climate policy community must better anticipate where these debates are moving. We must speak the same language, and enter the forums where decisions are made, including security, trade and bilateral or trilateral spaces.
We should build on an enlightened self interest recognising that cooperation remains essential and beneficial. This includes using the UN climate process differently: less as an ever-expanding negotiation machine, and more as a space for norm-setting, political alignment and deal-making. In an age of fragmentation, effective cooperation must not only be framed as necessary but thought of as a strategically compelling source of resilience and shared advantage.
The post Energy transition policymaking must evolve to fit an age of rupture appeared first on Climate Home News.
Energy transition policymaking must evolve to fit an age of rupture
“Next year is too late for regulations”: Beetaloo Energy’s 2GW gas-powered AI data centre a “disaster proposal” destined to cause climate chaos
Allegations of harms at China-backed transition minerals projects rise
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